The old truck turned into the now familiar laneway.

  “Watch for the dogs.” Jim warned, “they could be anywhere and remember what Randy said, don’t get out, let them come and get us.”

  “Do you hear em’ Amos, where are they?” Alanah asked in a nonchalant fashion from the window seat. She was doing her best to interact with Amos without getting mad.

  Jim had told her repeatedly that this was not his fault and that she should not take his coldness and detachment personally, but she did. She was now realizing just how much she had taken Amos for granted. She also really missed his determined optimism and self belief that if he just did the necessary things then it would all work out.

  For fucks sake. He had almost gotten us there. An apartment, we had a source of income and our own car. He even made me a bathtub. Would Will have ever been able to do anything like that?

  Thoughts like this just made her angrier. Not at Amos but at those stupid petty-minded gangsters who just took and took and never let anything go. She was determined to make them sorry that they had ever targeted her and Amos and if Amos got sicker then ,,,,it would be much worse for them.

  All thoughts of Newburyport and the safe haven it promised had been banished for some time now. Alanah had decided that she would either fix this problem with Amos or go down trying…whatever that meant. She didn’t want to think about that possibility.

  “The dogs are behind the barn, Randy’s talking to them and he’s holding them back”.

  A moment later the two German Sheppard dogs came around the corner of the barn straining at the end of their leads. When Randy saw the truck he quickly said something to the dogs and they quieted down almost immediately and stopped pulling so much as he walked to the truck.

  Oncer they were within ten feet of the truck they both started barking at the three occupants inside the cab and Randy was unable to get them to stop. He started to get frustrated and then he checked himself and took a long look at Amos inside the vehicle.

  “I’m gonna lock em’ in the barn, won’t be a second. Stay put till’ I come out and give you the okay.”

  The trip to the farm was unplanned and last minute. Alanah did not feel comfortable with all of the cash that she and Amos had gotten from the raid on the restaurant. “It’s dirty money” she had said and it had been important for Amos to start earning our money without stealing. He won’t say much now but when he’s feeling better he’s not gonna want it.”

  In the end Jim had suggested that they donate half to Simon and Andi and once Alanah had agreed he volunteered half of his stack too. Alanah had protested but Jim had pushed back.

  “Maybe it’s a down payment for all of us to live out there. With all of the enemies we’re making in Boston we’re gonna need to move out there and build a big electric fence.”

  Paul had wanted a few days to let things cool down and to plan out the next moves.

  “We will want to hit them hard. Three nights in a row. Really rattle their cage and keep em’ guessing. Now that I know who we are dealing with I’m going to go through my old notes when I was with narcotics and pick the targets we need.”

  Jim could see that a few days was going to cause Alanah and admittedly himself a fair bit of stress as Amos continued to become more withdrawn and, well there was no other way to put it…… eerie. A trip to the farm promised be a welcome escape from the tight confines of his shop.

  Randy came out from the side of the barn and gave them a big thumbs up. While they were watching him marshal the dogs into the barn Simon had come out of the farmhouse and was standing on the porch giving them a happy but nervous smile.

  His face widened into a much larger smile after Alanah broke into a quick trot once she climbed out of the truck to give him a big embrace.

  “Well hello Alanah, mighty nice to see you so soon too. Didn’t expect ya but I’m glad you came. Andi’s dropping off eggs in town so I hope this is a longer visit or she’ll be mighty upset to have missed ya. Good to see you too Jim, what brings you here?”

  A moment later Randy joined them on the lawn and the small talk quickly gave way to an uncomfortable silence that was broken after a long pause by Simon.

  “What’s wrong with Amos, why is he just sitting there, did you have a fight on the way up?”

  “No, hang on, I’ll get him but he’s not doing well, Jim will tell you what’s up with him.”

  Alanah went to the truck and asked Amos to come out and then took him by the arm to go look at the horses that were turned out in the paddock.

  As the young pair walked off Jim began to fill in Randy and Simon on what had transpired since Randy had left them a few days ago.

  “Jesus, Jim, are you sure there isn’t any other way?” Simon was pouring Jim a cup of coffee from a dented steel percolator next to the stove while Jim sat at the old wood table with Randy in the sun dappled farmhouse kitchen.

  The older man’s wooden chair leg scraped on the floor as he shifted his weight to lean forwards and take the cup. “I’m sure Randy told you what he saw Amos do with the changes to his sight and hearing. You’ve been workin’ with animals all your life and you know as well as I do that they just don’t change like that overnight.”

  “Somethin’ happened to the boy, somethin’ we don’t understand and something we can’t treat neither.” Jim looked defeated as he looked on at Simon and Randy. “I don’t like this plan much at all. I know it’s dangerous but no one has any better ideas, and I fear, the longer we wait, the less there will be left of Amos”.

  An uncomfortable silence descended upon the three men. They did not have much left to talk about and much more that they all preferred was left unsaid. The time would come when they would have to address their fears and reconcile with what had been happening but for now, it was just easier to stay silent.

  Paul was at the dining room table in his weathered white clapboard house on Saugus Avenue. He liked it here or at least he had. When he convinced his wife to buy it years ago he had sold her on the location and the home’s potential. They backed onto Rumney Marsh reservation and the white sands Revere Beach was an easy bike ride away.

  It was a great spot to raise kids and to let them explore and just be kids. He would work on the old house on his spare time and eventually it would be a great family home on a very quiet street.

  The family never came. He lost his partner, then his wife and for years afterwards he languished in the old, empty home while he fought to get reinstated to the force. When that failed he had lost everything that mattered to him except for the old house that never had a chance to mean anything at all.

  He had spread his old notes and copies of case files across the dining table. It felt good to be doing something again even it was short lived and probably dangerous. He didn’t care. He liked the girl and felt sorry for the boy.

  Paul wondered what the boy was like before he had been afflicted. Everyone seemed genuinely found of him and quite worried about him. If he and his wife had ever had kids, would they have had this kind of spirit and spunk? He would never know but if he could help these two out then he would do what it takes. Besides, he had nothing left to lose.

  He separated anything that was related to the North End and then went through that smaller pile and took out everything that was related to la Famigilia and their activities. Now he had addresses and names to work with. Too many actually because the crimes and history of la Famigilia were extensive and ongoing for decades.

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  He took a break to have a tuna sandwich and a bottle of Miller beer. Just another meal alone, one of many hundreds when he did remember or care enough to eat. After leaving his dish in the sink and grabbing another beer Paul returned to the final pile of papers and went through it one more time.

  Once he was finished he had several addresses that he felt were optimal targets as well as the location of Nonna Conti herself. One address seemed like a logical next choice and he had known about this place long before his research.

  At the corner of Salem and Prince Streets there was the Rosetta Bakery. He had been here a few times before when he had warrants and few times without them. It was a popular bakery run by the family, a neighbourhood institution but located in an area that would be quiet at night and easy to get away from.

  It should have been a happier meal, Andi and Simon were delighted to have Jim and Alanah at their table, but the distant and vacant presence of Amos was a serious damper on everyone’s mood.

  We shouldn’t have brought him here, they just aren’t used to him and this has to be a shock to them. They don’t deserve this at all. Alanah was feeling terrible, her feelings for Simon and Andi and their farmhand were still just developing but even in their infancy they were still quite strong.

  She felt a fierce loyalty to them and it hurt her to see them so worried about her and Amos. They were reluctant to take the money but Jim insisted and finally they did. After some more forced small talk they were finally saying their goodbyes at the truck.

  Alanah had some bottles of milk in a basket and a few cartons of eggs under her arm. She had no appetite these days or any desire to cook but to have refused the gift would have been cruel so she had accepted it graciously.

  On the way down the drive Jim tried to break the silence. “Well Amos, was it nice seeing the farm and Simon and Andie again?” There was a long pause and Alanah was sure that he would not have a response to that type of question but he did.

  When he spoke his voice was flat and detached, free of any emotion or inflection. “Simon is sick and getting sicker and Andi is worried. Her bugs are…”

  “Stop it Amos. Just stop it for fucks sake. Just stop…… please….just stop”. Alanah turned her head to the window and fought back tears. This curse was eating away Amos and she just couldn’t bear it to hear about anything bad happening to Simon or Andi. Not today. Not ever.

  Paul picked them up just a few hours after midnight. Alanah had been too nervous to sleep and when she finally fell asleep it felt like Jim was waking her just minutes later. Jim was tired as well. He wasn’t going with them but he was probably just as nervous as Alanah was if not more.

  No one thought that Amos was nervous at all. He was just there. Alanah wasn’t even sure if he slept all that much anymore. He would lie down and eat and shower still but he had to be encouraged to do it.

  She still had butterflies in her stomach as they drove into the North End for their second attack. This was the first time they had dared to attack in the home territory of la Famigilia and she wasn’t sure what to expect.

  Paul had chosen the target well however and when they arrived just before three in the morning all of the tight narrow streets were deserted without any activity.

  “The bars have been closed for two hours now so even the sloppiest drunks have ended up passed out somewhere and the bar staff have all gone home. Not that it matters here, the closest bar is almost two blocks away so we shouldn’t have any issues.”

  “When do they start baking?” Alanah was worried about running into the early shift at the bakery.

  “They open at seven in the morning and the bakers will want the bread and sweet rolls to be fresh so they won’t start until at least a few more hours from now. We’ve got time.”

  He pulled the old grey Jeep down the alleyway besides the Rosetta Bakery and shut off the engine. He rolled down the window and asked Alanah to do the same for hers.

  “Amos, take a listen. Do you hear any cars or people nearby?”

  After about ten seconds he gave his reply. “I don’t hear a thing in the bakery. There are several people in the nearby buildings. Most are sleeping, a few are watching TV. I don’t hear any nearby cars but there are two stray dogs down the block and a motorcycle coming towards us but it’s a long way off.”

  Moments later all three were out of the vehicle and a short while after that Amos was climbing the gas pipe that followed its way up the wall to the roof. With the energy needs of the bakery the gas line was large and sturdy and by bracing his feet on the rough brick wall as he climbed Amos was up in no time.

  The skylights were on the second floor roof exactly as Paul had described. Amos took the time to listen again on the rooftop as Paul had instructed. When he was certain he heard nothing he took out a small hatchet and a roll of heavy cloth that he placed over the glass. He then lifted the hatchet and with a swift downward motion he smashed the glass repeatedly until it had fallen to the floor below.

  Once he cleared the glass from the frame he tied a rope around the skylight curb like Paul had shown him and then he tossed the rest of the rope down to the floor below. From there it was a short climb down to the second floor and moments later he was stand on an old wood floor covered by a film of dust. There were bags of flour and cans of olive oil stack haphazardly around the walls and a set of stairs that led to the kitchen.

  Just as Paul had told him, Amos found a padlocked access door that lead to the laneway where they had parked, Once Amos cut off the lock the small loading door swung open to reveal Paul standing there holding a smudge pot in either arm.

  Alanah had been quite dismissive of the idea of lighting smudge pots in the bakery.

  “What’s the point of that? What are big bowls of incense going to do to them? Why don’t we just burn it down? No one lives in any apartments above like they do at the restaurant so let’s torch the place!”

  “Too crude and we don’t want to escalate too quickly. This bakery is a cornerstone of the community. Everyone here knows it and has eaten their bread, cakes and rolls. The old women love to come and gossip here in the morning. We are going to take it from them, make it unusable for months and get them talking.”

  Paul had shown Alanah the contents of the smudge pots as they talked. He had taken the time to explain his strategy to her in great detail. It was the first time in many years that he was proud of something he had done and unknowingly, at least to himself, he was reveling in the moment.

  The smudge pots were a crude but effective way to create a thick layer of smoke that would hang low and blanket an area. They were used to keep orchards from getting hit with frost by keeping the air temperature amongst the trees slightly warmer overnight.

  Paul had changed the formula so that the pots would produce an acrid, black, oily smoke that would permeate and cling to anything it touched. “The cleanup, if possible, will take months.”

  “Every piece of equipment will nee to be taken apart and cleaned. Every bit of their supplies will need to be thrown out and replaced. Every square inch of the building will need to be deep cleaned and even then, the burnt stench will always be in the walls and in the floors. They will always smell it and never get rid of it.

  Amos took the pots from Alanah and moved into the building to set them in place. Alanah crawled through the loading door after him and once inside she turned on the tactical headlamp that Paul had given her.

  A soft red glow spread out in front of her and she moved into the kitchen looking for the smoke alarms. Because the building was so old it was exempted from having a sprinkler system and the owners were far too cheap to ever retrofit the building.

  They reasoned that If it had stood for over one hundred years without burning down then there was no rush to spend money on something they never needed before was there?

  The smoke alarms were hard wired into the ceiling. Paul had instructed Alanah to pull the unit from the ceiling, toss the battery and then cut the power wire. “There should be at least four, at the most six. Check each room, they will be on the ceiling or high up on the walls but almost certainly the ceilings.”

  He had given here a very light collapsible ladder. It was made of fiberglass and looked to be quite expensive and brand new. It was not lost on Alanah how much Paul was willing to help them and how much risk he was taking personally to do so.

  According to Amos, Paul was terribly sad and he was not afraid of dying.

  Alanah believed him, Paul was almost as emotionless as Amos, he never got excited or showed any fear but he also never showed any signs of happiness or joy and he seemed to live a solitary existence.

  How much did someone have to lose to become like this and how much had the curse taken from Amos at this point?

  She climbed up the ladder after locating the first smoke alarm and ripped it off the ceiling. Moments later two batteries clattered onto the floor and then the greasy white smoke alarm crashed down as well and shattered into a few pieces.

  After Amos placed the smudge pots he waited as Alanah worked her way through the building. Every few minutes there would be another crashing sound as the smoke alarms fell dead to the floor.

  “Jesus…why am I looking around in the dark for smoke alarms like goddamn Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer when you have the super eye sight. Amos, check each room, walls and ceiling for any alarms. Look for small lights or …I dunno…just look or listen. Just do your thing.”

  After a slow methodical search from room to room Amos found one more smoke alarm behind the big stainless steel oven vents in the kitchen and two carbon monoxide alarms. Once Alanah has dispatched these they went back to the loading door and passed their gear out to Paul.

  He then gave them a drill driver and several sturdy brackets and long screws to secure the front an rear doors. “Put three on each door and sink as many screws in as you can. The windows are all barred so don’t worry about them.”

  Five minutes later Alanah was lighting the first smudge pot on the second floor. “Once it catches get away. It won’t go out afterwards without a lot of effort or unless it runs out of fuel but that will take days….”

  Once Alanah and Amos had crawled out of the loading door Paul quickly put the last of the brackets over the door and door frame using special screws and a matching tamper proof bit.

  “Ummhh Paul, why is the brick wall steaming? Is there something wrong with the smudge pots?”

  “Look carefully, I wrote something on the wall with a full strength Hydrochloric acid solution. It’s still dissolving the surface of the bricks. Whatever you do, don’t touch it.”

  As the two kids climbed into the Jeep, Paul carefully peeled off his thick rubber gloves and wrap around goggles and tossed them on the ground and then dumped the rest of the acid solution on the pile. He got in the Jeep and backed out onto the street. As they pulled away from the building the front windows of the bakery slowly filled with a roiling black smoke.